Small businesses may want to act now and bring forward their capital purchases if they still wish to utilise the instant asset write-off of $6,500 or the $5,000 motor vehicle write-off in 2013-14. The details of the government’s repeal of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) make it clear that some small business tax concessions...

Talk of Australians’ rising life expectancies has been making headlines as of late. The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics projects a “life expectancy at birth” age of 79.9 for men and 84.3 for women. But representative body the Actuaries Institute said those who have already reached the age of 65 can expect...

The treatment of excess superannuation contributions has been a contentious issue for some years, with many people falling victim to the punishing excess contributions tax through inadvertently going over the limits. The reasons this can happen include an employer making contributions that may fall within a different financial year, expense reimbursement or debt forgiveness which...

With the year steadily making its way towards the festive period, businesses that are turning their attention to end-of-year celebrations will need to keep in mind the tax implications of throwing a Christmas party or handing over gifts to staff. Of course there’s nothing wrong with getting into the yuletide spirit, but business owners should...

The worryingly early start to Australia’s bushfire season in New South Wales means scores of local volunteers are standing on the frontline, battling and protecting residents from the devastating fires. This raises the important practical question – do payments to volunteers constitute assessable income and are their expenses tax deductible? There is no legal definition...

The Tax Office has published a list of the top 10 types of compliance mistakes made by SMSF trustees. The data from which the list is taken is based on the type of contraventions reported by approved SMSF auditors since 2005 (when compulsory contravention reporting started) up to June 30, 2012. The top 10 contravention...

The Tax Office has issued advice regarding fuel tax credits after it noticed some errors creeping into recent activity statements — also reminding businesses that rates can change regularly (and have done so recently) and that this can be a common source of the mistakes being made. For those businesses eligible to claim fuel tax...

Word on the street is that the Tax Office has taken additional steps to engage with self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) trustees to bring their lodgement obligations up-to-date. Over the past few months, the Tax Office has been writing directly to SMSF trustees with two or more lodgement obligations overdue, advising them that they will remove...

dependant tax offset claims The Tax Office has stopped all tax returns with a Dependant (Invalid and Carer) Tax Offset claim and is reviewing them, following an unexpected upsurge in the number of individuals that have made claims for the new tax offset. The new Dependant (Invalid and Carer) Tax Offset is only available to...

Got a carry-forward tax loss burning a hole in your business’s pocket? Don’t get too creative if you’ve thought how handy it would be to absorb that loss as a tax deduction for a future income year. Tax law has measures in place to ensure such deductions are limited to those businesses that are legitimately...